Perspectives
by Paradox on wings
Summary: Collection of one-shots in random points of view of our beloved characters. Drabbles, basically. Warning: there will be extreme language in some, but I didn't think it deserved an "M"
1. LoveHate

I've changed this piece and decided to make it a collection of one-shots--this one standing alone was okay, but I felt like it needed companions. So now, it's just a series of one-shots that won't get out of my head.

I made it sound casual, but it's really not. I'm actually quite proud of these.

(:

Enjoy.

--

Lily and James.

--

By now, I'm super pissed. The voice in the back of my head sympathizes with the neighbors in the next room and across the hall and tells me I should tone it down, but I'm too mad to consider it.

"I don't care that you had no obligations toward me! I don't care that I was the one who broke up with you! You still slept with her! I told you I loved you! How could you have told you loved me the whole time when we were apart? How can I believe you when you say you love me now?"

"Baby, you can love someone but be with someone else. Besides, I'm a guy. If we're not thinking with the head in our pants, we're acting on its behalf."

"I'm not your baby! And you know what? Fuck you and your fucking horny perverted bastardness!"

He snorts a little. "Actually, I think it would relieve my horniness. Maybe not the perverted bastardness..."

I glare at him. I am shooting death daggers with my eyes. He stops.

"Maybe I don't love you anymore. Maybe I've found someone else."

"Like who?"

"The guy in the lobby."

"Lily, he was at least forty years old."

"Maybe I'm into older, maturer guys after my catastrophe with _you_."

"Or maybe you have daddy issues."

My mouth twitches. I glare some more. I really should despise him for making light of everything.

"I hate you. You never take me seriously. You always have to make a joke about _everything_," I repeat out loud, more convincingly.

He remains silent. I storm out of the room, slamming the door, only to end up bursting in again.

"Okay, maybe I don't hate you. Maybe I can't stay mad at you ever. Maybe I just fucking hate the way I manage to still want to be with you even after you break my heart and after you deliberately make fun of me."

His eyes follow me anxiously as I pace back and forth.

"You're such a fucking _douchebag_. I should hate you. I do, sometimes. Really, really loathe you.

Okay, we both know that's untrue. I don't ever really loathe you. Just, I find you despicable at times. Okay, fine, I dislike you. Okay, okay, _fine_. Maybe not even that. Ugh! You drive me insane! And not in the good way either! Fine, sometimes in the good way. But don't get a big head about it."

I run my hands through my hair in frustration and look back at him. He's grinning at me.

"Oh, shut the fuck up," I snap.

"I haven't said a word until now."

"We both know that stupid you in my head is speaking. I still know how you think."

"I should be flattered."

"I fucking hate your guts."

"Are you going back to that argment with yourself again? Because before that soap opera starts, I want to pop some popcorn."

"I fucking _detest_ your guts."

"And I adore your nipples. But that doesn't really count as guts, does it?"

I try punching him in the stomach, but he only blocks me and pulls me close to him, unrelenting. He knows it pisses me off even more. I alternately beat him as best as I can and try to break his grip to get away, even though I know it's probably hopeless.

A long struggle later, I sigh, and give up, letting my head rest on his chest. I've forgotten how much I love the smell of his shirts, crisp and clean.

"I _abhor_ your guts," I mutter, the words slightly muffled from my squashed cheek.

He laughs.

"Fuck you."

"You've--"

"Don't say it! Don't you dare say it!"

"--already--"

"James, I am warning you right now!"

I raise my head and glare at him for the millionth time. He grins broadly back.

"Point taken. So go wipe that stupid smirk off your stupid face."

"I love you."

"Hate you."

"Marry me?"

"Why on _earth_ would I want to do _that_? I'd rather _kill_ myself."

He only looks at me.

I sigh. "Fuck it."

He laughs, and pulls me in tighter, his fingers running through my hair.

"Hey, James?"

"Yes?"

"I'm going to make your life a living hell. You'll see."

"Somehow I highly doubt that."

"Yeah? Well...Well..."

"Shhhhh." He places his finger on my lips, letting it rest there, gently tracing the curves, the corners, and then his lips follow the same path.

"I hate you," I manage to mumble.

"Mmmmm..." is all he answers back, and his arms curl around my waist.

I should be ashamed of myself. I really should. But I find myself smiling as my arms wrap around his neck.


	2. Unfulfilled

Severus and Lily

--

There is a silence in the moment. He stares at her, longingly, desperately, finally glad to have at least been able to catch her attention for five seconds. She's been avoiding him. She knows that he knows it. She stares back. He open his mouth to say something, anything, but she quickly turns, her beautiful auburn hair inches from whipping his face (and yet he still wants to reach out and touch, run his fingers through it, tell her how much, oh, just _how much_) and she runs off, her footsteps echoing and disappearing down the stone hall.

He wishes she had stayed. He wishes she would've paused to hear him out.

But she isn't obligated to. She doesn't owe him anything. He knows that.


	3. Wishful

Remus

--

He finds himself standing in front of a billboard for some new perfume, intently staring at it. It's not that he wants to get _Forever_, or whatever it's frivolously called.

No. It's the obviously bright smiles (even in black and white) on the couple's faces as they lovingly gaze at each other, arms intertwined around each other's waists.


	4. Acceptance

Ginny and Harry

--

She and Harry had been fighting over it for weeks, up until he had quickly thrown the last word in as the Healer shut her into her birthing ward, calling, "Yes!"

She tried forming the scream that was inevitably going to be emitted from her mouth into a "NOO!!" but it comes out as an "UGGGGGHHHHH."

Five hours later, she holds Albus Severus in her arms, scowling at Harry who is the perfect image of innocent contriteness, hands in his pockets, smiling sheepishly.

"I bet you the Healer laughed hysterically when you told her the name."

"Actually, no. She seemed to like it."

Ginny scoffed. "I have a theory. You're testing your popularity by seeing how many people will willingly swallow and accept these increasingly ridiculous names you come up with."

Harry merely grins mischievously.

"I'm never having a baby with you again."


	5. Envy

Petunia makes it a point to be as nasty to Lily as possible when she comes home on the holidays—smiling eagerly, her pockets full with those ludicrous sugar quills and Chocolate Frogs and other new things to show her parents—just so she can see Lily's mouth crumple, her eyebrows turn down into a frown as her younger sister tries to figure out what to make of her older one.

She feels her heart triumphantly beating, her sneer growing wider and more condescending when Lily gets that defeated look in her eyes.

And for those moments, Petunia forgets the sadness and despair she felt when she read Dumbledore's letter, the humiliation when she realized Severus and Lily read it, the jealousy whenever her parents coo over Lily's new life and finds, the envy whenever she comes home, reminding Petunia of the life she'll never have.

In those moments, she has the upper hand, for one last time.


	6. Unforgivable

The Evans-es. Companion to "Envy"  
--

They're proud of her, Lily, and happy for her, too. It was at Hogwarts where (she had confessed tearfully to them) she felt that, for the first time in her life, she actually belonged somewhere, and at Hogwarts where she found the love of her life (in the form of a messy black-haired, impishly mischievous boy who had accidentally trekked mud into their spotless house, but they had overlooked this grievance for Lily's sake, and had actually grown to like him).

But deep down inside, despite all the marvelous things Lily brings home and the handy little spells she'll use around the house to keep the house unnaturally spotless that "Muggle" cleaners and elbow grease cannot upkeep, they will always view Hogwarts, magic, as the thing that, in the end, tore their family apart.


	7. Whore

Sirius  
--

Three days after the rejection (_I'm not ready yet)_, he found someone else, a giggling brunette, dimmer, and willing to swallow every word he spoon fed her.

They were completely different. But there were those rare times—the formation of her lips, the dropping of one shoulder, the pressing of her body against his, the rolling of her eyes, the fluttering of her fingers—where he was reminded of the "other" girl. The _only_ girl.

It was those few moments where he pulled her in tighter, kissed her a little harder, reached out to hold her hand and interlace their fingers, or smiled a bit brighter. And when she responded by draping her arms over his shoulders, squeezing his hand slightly, or audaciously grinning right back at him, he would realize it wasn't the _other_, and he would falter a little.

And she didn't notice.

He had ruined his chances with _her_. But he kept playing his charade, pretending he was happy, pretending he didn't care.

Of all the possible whores in this world, he was by far the worst.


	8. Pride

Ron

--

Some small part of him is whispering, "Go back, go back and apologize and tell her you love her, tell him you're sorry. They'll forgive you."

In some tiny section in his brain, it replays the despair on her face, her cry after him, the tears he knows would be running down her face.

But it's his damn pride, his damn Weasley pride, that keeps him trudging on, that makes him choose a spot to Apparate from, and abandon the adopted family that means everything to him.


	9. Growing Up

After Fred and George have terrorized Umbridge, called for their brooms, flown out of Hogwarts into Hogsmeade and from there, Apparated to Diagon Alley, they stare at the rundown shop they have just bought.

There are bits of plaster falling from the ceiling, the paint is peeling, and there are rats scurrying around everywhere.

Fred turns to George. "Great. So…what the fuck do we do now?"

"I don't know, mate. I had everything from our parting words planned up to buying this dilapidated shack. I didn't think about the after."

They stare a bit more as their attention is directed to the cracked window, the falling planks, the dusty floor from the inevitable crumbling.

For once in their lives, the Weasley twins do not have their bustling mother to wave her wand and clear the mess, or the fastidious Hogwarts house-elves. They would have to do everything themselves.

George's stomach rumbles.

They don't have their mother's cooking or the house-elves generosity either.

"It's too bad we didn't nick some food from the kitchens beforehand," George laments.

"Guess we'll have to depend on Tom's unreliable cooking, then." Fred makes a face.

"We could learn how to cook for ourselves…"

They both erupt into raucous laughter, smacking each other on the backs as they wheeze air from their lungs.

But they still find themselves walking out of Flourish and Blotts later, carrying _Spells and Tricks to Survive Bachelordom_.


	10. Dominoes

She laughs delightedly as James chases Harry around on his miniature broomstick. She marvels at hoe similar her husband and her son look—_except for the eyes_, everyone tells her. _He has your eyes_.

She will never regret skinny-dipping in the lake with Alice, only to have Professor McGonogall catch them and give her her first detention in her _life_, and have to sit in a dusty classroom with the giggling Alice and, not surprisingly, _all_ of the Marauders as McGonogall looks at them all as strictly as she can, but they know she's amused on the inside.

Because then, she wouldn't have felt so daring and carefree. And she wouldn't have ever said "Yes" when James Potter had asked her out for the very last time.

Her only regret (and it was very slight) was that she had not done so sooner.


End file.
